Activist groups across Georgia have denounced the City of Atlanta’s decision to use signature matching in order to verify signatures on a petition that would allow voters to decide on the fate of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
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The Georgia Department of Transportation has found a few HEROs to help patrol metro Atlanta’s highways.
In May, GDOT officials said the agency lacked the personnel to maintain 24-hour Highway Emergency Response Operator patrols, a common sight along metro Atlanta’s busy interstates. At the time, the agency said HERO units would continue to patrol when traffic volumes are the highest — during daytime and evening hours seven days a week — and when roughly 91% of mishaps happen.
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As the state looks to evaluate and possibly overhaul its tax system, one state public policy group says officials should improve the tax credit system’s transparency.
“The state has taken a vital step toward creating a fairer tax system by convening this panel and by implementing specific legislative provisions like the one in 2021’s SB 6 that provided for the analyses of tax benefits,” Georgia Budget and Policy Institute President and CEO Staci Fox said in a statement. “While these measures are commendable, past evaluations of tax credits have run into resource and information limitations that hindered meaningful findings and the identification of actionable next steps.
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The Atlanta City Council signed off on spending $4 million to develop “quick-delivery housing” for the city’s homeless population.
Last month, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens issued an executive order directing the city’s chief financial officer to fund a new “Rapid Housing” initiative. The city plans to repurpose shipping containers that the Georgia Emergency Management Agency used as temporary hospitals amid the COVID-19 pandemic and are now being decommissioned.
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Another inmate was recently found dead in their cell in the Fulton County Jail’s medical unit, according to a press release by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO).
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Investigative journalist and former Florida U.S. House candidate Laura Loomer is urging supporters of former President Donald Trump to rally in front of the Fulton County Jail on Thursday.
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Attorney John Eastman turned himself in Tuesday to the Fulton County jail, records show, after he was indicted last week alongside former President Donald Trump and 17 other co-conspirators for their alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Eastman said Tuesday that the indictment “should never have been brought” and that it “targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients.”
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A Georgia Senate joint committee will soon meet to discuss artificial intelligence.
“AI may be one of the greatest disruptors in history providing significant advancements and monumental risk,” State Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell (pictured above), chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Safety, said in a statement. “We must address this head on to protect our citizens, businesses, and state.”
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A federal court in the Northern District of Georgia issued rulings on Friday upholding portions of Georgia’s Election Integrity Act while also banning countries from rejecting absentee ballots that contain improper date of births.
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Georgia’s July unemployment rate was 3.2%, unchanged from June’s revised rate, even as more Georgians filed initial unemployment claims.
The state’s unemployment rate is also lower than the national unemployment rate of 3.5%. In July, Georgians filed 31,410 initial claims for unemployment benefits, up 34%, or 7,933, from a month earlier and 2,865 from last year.
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A Georgia school board voted Thursday to fire a teacher who read her fifth-grade students a book on gender identity, according to The Associated Press.
In March, Katie Rinderle, a fifth-grade teacher at Cobb County School District, says she got in trouble for reading her class “My Shadow is Purple,” a picture book about a child who discovers they are neither a girl or a boy, according to the AP. The Cobb County School Board voted 4-3 to fire Rinderle, finding that the teacher had violated the state’s divisive concepts law, which bars educators from giving lessons on race and “espousing personal political beliefs.”
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Georgia State Senator Colton Moore (R-Trenton) sent a letter to Governor Brian Kemp calling on him to convene an emergency session to investigate Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
“We, the undersigned, being duly elected members of the Georgia House of Representatives and Georgia Senate, and comprising 3/5 of each respective house, pursuant to Article IV, Section II, Paragraph VII(b), hereby certify to you, in writing, with a copy to the Secretary of State, that in our opinion an emergency exists in the affairs of the state, requiring a special session to be convened under that section, for all purposes, to include, without limitation, the review and response to the actions of Fani Willis,” Moore wrote in his letter on Thursday.
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In a post to his locals.com page Georgia attorney Robert Barnes took subscribers on a little trip down memory lane about the 2020 Georgia election challenges.
As Mr. Barnes explained, detailed affidavits filed by the Trump campaign established the veracity of the claims. Short version: Constitutionally unqualified voters cast Constitutionally unqualified ballots that were Constitutionally unqualified canvassed and counted in far excess of the margin of victory — indeed, more than 10 times the margin of victory. Unlawfully, Fulton County courts blocked the case from ever being heard.
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Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP) Josh McKoon slammed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as a “power-mad prosecutor” this week after former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted for their alleged roles in attempting to “overturn” the results of the 2020 election.
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A bipartisan bill to get rid of outdated or duplicative government reports is duplicative, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., introduced the Eliminate Useless Reports Act of 2023. It would require federal agencies to list any recurring reports they identify as outdated or duplicative.
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Two inmates at the Fulton County Jail have died this month, according to press releases by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO).
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Georgia Governor Brian Kemp responded to former President Donald Trump’s indictment in the Peach State for his alleged role in attempting to “overturn” the results of the 2020 election.
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Atlanta journalist George Chidi announced Saturday he was asked by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office to testify before a grand jury this Tuesday in the 2020 election interference case against former President Donald Trump.
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Georgia’s news outlets from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to Atlanta News First have reported about a shortage of teachers plaguing the state’s education system. Data from the state’s Department of Education paints a different picture.
Georgia had a total of 123,210 teachers in 2022-23, according to their data. This is an increase of 1,711 teachers from the previous school year when Georgia had 121,499 teachers.
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Georgia lawmakers will likely consider legislation requiring social media companies to help crack down on cyberbullying.
Lt. Governor Burt Jones and Senate Majority Caucus Chair Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, plan to introduce legislation for lawmakers to consider during the 2024 legislative Session to require social media companies to take “concrete steps” to verify their users’ ages.
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Atlanta received a failing grade for its charter school funding gap.
A new report from the School Choice Demonstration Project, an educational research project within the University of Arkansas’ Department of Education Reform, examined funding disparities between traditional public schools and public charter schools in 18 cities nationwide.
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The State of Georgia broke records for the third year in a row in regards to economic development as total investments in facility expansions and new locations totaled more than $24 billion during fiscal year 2023 (FY23).
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The City of Atlanta has the second most generous indoor and outdoor living spaces out of the 50 largest U.S. cities, according to recent research analyzed by online nationwide self-storage search website StorageCafe.
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Earlier this year, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed House Bill 118 and House Bill 622 to triple Bartow County’s homestead tax exemptions for school and county ad valorem taxes.
But property owners across the Peach State have seen their property tax bills balloon. State Rep. Matthew Gambill, R-Cartersville, spoke with The Center Square recently about property taxes and what action state lawmakers might take.
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The Georgia Lottery Corp. recently announced that it raised $1,516,383,000 for education in the Peach State during fiscal year 2023 (FY23), which spanned from July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023.
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“Structural racism” contributes to higher Type 2 diabetes rates in black Americans, according to a new paper from Emory University researchers.
The researchers used a framework that “consider[s] the domains of health behaviours and social norms, structural racism, access to high-quality care, economic development, and public awareness.”
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Students that attend Fulton County Schools and DeKalb County Schools were met with new security improvements including weapon detection systems and push-button alert systems.
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An inmate who was in charge of coordinating a shipment of methamphetamine from Atlanta into Western North Carolina and the leader of a Savannah-area drug trafficking conspiracy were both sentenced to federal prison this week
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A Fulton County grand jury has indicted eight former state employees on unemployment insurance fraud charges.
Prosecutors say the eight submitted false claims and weekly certifications to the Georgia Department of Labor during the COVID-19 pandemic to receive unemployment insurance benefits when employed by the state. According to the State of Georgia Office of the Inspector General, the eight received $170,931 in unemployment insurance benefits and federal supplements.
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South Korean company Duckshin Housing announced this week it will invest more than $15 million to establish its first U.S. manufacturing presence in Athens.
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The family of Lashawn Thompson reached a $4 million settlement with Fulton County in the death of Thompson, who was found dead in a cell on the county jail’s psychiatric floor covered in bed bugs and insects last year.
Fulton County commissioners voted six to zero to approve the family’s settlement, 11 Alive reported. The outlet noted that the settlement comes two months after the family released the results of a private autopsy of Thompson, which showed that he died from “severe neglect.”
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Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens plans to use $4 million to develop “quick-delivery housing” for homeless people in the city.
Dickens issued an executive order directing the city’s chief financial officer to fund a new “Rapid Housing” initiative. The city plans to repurpose shipping containers that Georgia Emergency Management Agency used as temporary hospitals amid the COVID-19 pandemic and are now being decommissioned.
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Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum held a press conference on Tuesday announcing an increase to the cash reward in the search for a “very small group of extremists” responsible for a series of arson attacks across the city.
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Election security will likely remain a hot-button issue in Georgia when lawmakers return to the Gold Dome in January and heading into the 2024 election.
Last week, Lt. Governor Burt Jones met with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, to discuss a 2021 report by Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer science and engineering professor. The Georgia Republican Party has raised concerns about the report, which it said uncovered vulnerabilities.
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The Georgia Republican Party announced on Wednesday that it has launched a website defending the contingent electors for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election as they have been targeted by the Fulton County district attorney’s investigation.
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While Georgia public school students’ Georgia Milestones scores are improving, state officials said results have not yet reached pre-pandemic levels.
According to officials, results improved or remained steady in 13 of 21 assessments.
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Georgia lawmakers are likely to pass school choice legislation when they reconvene, one expert predicts.
School choice has taken on new resonance after Rep. Mesha Mainor of Atlanta, an ardent school choice supporter, announced she was switching to the Republican Party.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has filed an amicus brief in a highly visible U.S. Supreme Court case that could overturn a standing practice that gives federal agencies the power to interpret statutes.
Kemp, a Republican, filed his brief in the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which seeks to overturn the so-called Chevron deference established by the 1984 decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. It compels federal judges to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations in “ambiguous situations” as long as the interpretation is “reasonable.”
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A 68-year-old woman who was fired from her job at Lowe’s for attempting to stop an active robbery has been reinstated, according to a statement by a Lowe’s spokesperson.
Last month, according to RDP, three subjects went inside the Lowe’s store in Rincon, loaded multiple items into shopping carts, and exited the store without paying for the merchandise.
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Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani concedes that he made “false” and “defamatory” statements about two Georgia election workers who filed a lawsuit against him in an effort to resolve the case and to satisfy a judge who has considered issuing sanctions against the former New York City mayor.
The court document filed late Tuesday evening states that Giuliani “does not contest” four allegations made in a defamation case brought by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss against the former Trump attorney and the conservative outlet One America News Network.
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The Northern District of Georgia U.S. Attorney’s Office organized an initiative to provide law enforcement training for more than 40 police officers from school systems in the northern district of Georgia to prevent and reduce delinquency, youth violence, and gang membership.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office partnered with the Georgia Alliance for School Resource Officers and Educators, the Georgia Public Safety Training Center, and the Georgia Gang Investigators Association to provide the officers with Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.).
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Bradshaw Home, a designer and marketer of kitchen and cleaning products, will establish operations in Georgia by constructing a new distribution center in Effingham County.
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Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office is warning Georgians affected by the recent severe weather of scammers trying to exploit the disaster.
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State officials have removed more than 95,000 from Georgia’s Medicaid rolls, but one Georgia group says the move merely returns the program to how it was administered for its first 50 years.
State officials said that of the 95,578 who lost coverage, 89,168 were removed because of “a lack of information received … to make an eligibility determination.” The state indicated it has information that more than 20,000 of those “procedurally terminated” would not have been eligible for an extension.
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Special Counsel Jack Smith has contacted Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp regarding the investigation of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
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A Japanese probiotic beverage company recently announced it will establish operations in the Peach State by building a production facility at a Georgia Ready for Accelerated Development (GRAD) Certified site in Cartersville.
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Georgia’s unemployment rate continues to remain lower than the national rate.
On Thursday, officials said the Peach State’s June rate was 3.2%, the same as May’s revised rate and lower than the national average of 3.6%.
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recently announced the removal of 191,473 voter registration records that have been in an “inactive” status for two general elections and have failed to update their records within that time.
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Atlanta officials want state lawmakers to punish railroads for blocking grade crossings, but a leading state lawmaker says there is nothing the state can do.
The Atlanta City Council’s Transportation Committee passed a measure to advocate for punishing railroads that block grade crossings for prolonged periods. The measure, which the city council will consider the measure during its Aug. 7 meeting, calls on the Georgia General Assembly and Congress to pass legislation limiting how long freight trains can block a grade crossing.
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VoterGA, a nonprofit election integrity organization, has launched an effort urging voters to call on Georgia State lawmakers to call a special session and vote to unplug the state’s Dominion Voting System before the next election.
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